Scott Gries/NBC
Published Feb 24, 2026, 4:00 PM EST
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Tracy Morgan is back in the sitcom game, and has reunited with a few of his Saturday Night Live cohorts to do so.
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins stars Morgan as the eponymous former NFL star who was banned from the sport after he was caught in a gambling scandal. Looking to revitalize his image, he goes around his manager/ex-wife Monica to hire filmmaker Arthur Tobin to make a documentary about his career. But his journey down memory lane proves to also be one of growth for Reggie, Arthur, Reggie's friends and family.
Alongside Morgan, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins features a star-studded cast including two-time Emmy nominee Daniel Radcliffe as Arthur, Invasion's Erika Alexander as Monica, Saturday Night Live vet Bobby Moynihan as Reggie's best friend Rusty, Previous Way as Reggie's fiancée Brina and Jalyn Hall as Reggie's teen son Carmelo. The series, created by Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt pair Robert Carlock and Sam Means, has scored universal acclaim from critics, netting a perfect 100% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Ahead of the show's premiere, ScreenRant's Liam Crowley interviewed Tracy Morgan, Daniel Radcliffe, Bobby Moynihan, Precious Way, Jalyn Hall, Robert Carlock and Sam Means to discuss The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins. When asked about reuniting with both Moynihan and Tina Fey for the sitcom after first working together on Saturday Night Live and later on 30 Rock, Morgan described it as being "easy like Sunday morning," also sharing that Fey is "really happy about the turnout of the show."
Morgan went on to describe Fey as not just being a friend, but "my sister for what she's done for my career," both on SNL and with 30 Rock, which he says he's "binge-watching" in his free time. Comparing the seven-season satire to "a tall mountain [that] when you're right up on it, you got to move back," he finds himself looking back on his time with it and recognizing it to be a "funny show" and feeling he, Moynihan and Fey are "back in the saddle again" with Reggie Dinkins.
Moynihan also acknowledged how Saturday Night Live had a big hand in his reunion with Morgan on the new NBC sitcom, recalling how "Tracy hosted SNL my first year" and, as such, he got to see the two-time Emmy nominee "in all his glory." He further described his experience with Morgan on Reggie Dinkins as being "the best" time, pointing to the first scene their characters have together in the season in which they're improvising to be a lot of fun and that "SNL affords you this friendship" with other comics:
Bobby Moynihan: Tracy feels like a family member or a brother to me. Before this show, I had been in the same room with him for six hours total. You go through this kind of same thing together. Being on the show with him and getting to act with him is a blast. I love it. Tracy is a really funny guy. You realize he's gone through that SNL machine, and he came out on the other end, and it gives you a certain set of skills. Tracy can just snap into it and just be absolutely hilarious. He gets that from SNL. It's astonishing to be around and I love it. I love talking about SNL with him and I get very nerdy about it.
Mixing Fiction With Reality Was A "Day-To-Day Puzzle" For Carlock & Means
ScreenRant: We have references to Marvel and real NFL players, but we also go in offshoot directions. Reggie Dinkins is obviously a fictional character. Where do you define that line between where fiction ends and reality begins?
Robert Carlock: That's a day-to-day puzzle. It's a good question. One thing I like to say, and I haven't heard Sam repeat it, so it's not catching on, but going back to 30 Rock, the thing that we've always tried to do is how do you do the real in an absurd way, and how do you make the absurd real? And so we're always calibrating. If you don't recognize that, you're not going to relate to it. And the actors do a lot of that work by delivering jokes as if this is how people talk and act and grounding and centering these friendships and family relationships.
Sam Means: We always want our comedy to exist in the real world and to be commenting on it on some level, but also in ways that are universal. Especially on a production schedule where a topical joke might not be topical when the show comes out, it's about finding the heart of things and the way that the real world can illustrate a broader joke or whatever.
ScreenRant: I was at the Mercy premiere last night and I ran into a friend, Kyle Gordon, and I was telling him that I just watched the screeners for Reggie Dinkins, and I was pleasantly surprised to see his face. He does great work on social media. He's done a couple of things in film and TV. On the lines of casting someone like Kyle, when you get a social media personality like that in the show, what does that process look like? And on a broader note, do you think that that's opening up the scope to bring more social media personalities into fictionalized storytelling?
Robert Carlock: They're such a part of our culture now that it would feel weird not to see them for casting. I think with Kyle, we saw him through regular casting. And he was exactly the character. I didn't realize, right, he had done those [social media skits]. I had to do the math, I had to put it together that he'd done the music and stuff. I'd seen some of those songs before.
Sam Means: But then Blakely Thornton, who was in 103, that was written for him just because he has so much a part of the culture.
Way & Hall Had To Get Their Harry Potter Excitement Out Of Their System Working With Daniel Radcliffe
Scott Gries/NBCScreenRant: You wear a lot of different hats with this character. You're the agent, you're the mom, you're the ex-wife, you're arguably the life coach at times. How did you find that balance between all the different sides of Erika?
Erika Alexander: It just speaks to how she's probably going to have a psychotic breakdown. [Laughs] This character's holding on by a thin, thin thread. I think a lot of women are multitaskers, and they're expected to be. It's hard to do it when you have a shared history with a person that didn't work out. They failed at something together, and this cancel culture has taken him down, and she's determined to live loyal to her, not a vow, but to her friendship and help him recover. It resurrects her too, because she made a choice to be with him. I think we've seen women who've gone down with other people's choices, and they're hoping that that person will be redeemed because then they are. She is that person. I appreciate that because there's been a lot of talk about whether a woman should have to bear the slings and arrows of someone else, and I don't think it's fair, but it happens all the time.
ScreenRant: Did either of you two grow up Harry Potter fans? Was this just crazy, surreal?
Precious Way: Everybody tried to go in faking like they was cool with it, but I'm going to be the one to keep it real. I was like, "Is that Harry Potter? Is that you? Is that Harry? Is that the boy who lived?" I had to get it out of my system. To be fair, I fell in love with Daniel Radcliffe, but before we got to that, I had to have my moment. I did dress up like him.
Jalyn Hall: Yeah, more of the same with me. Being someone who loves fiction, who loves all things, superhero, magic, mythology, all those things, he was definitely a cornerstone in building that imagination. To see him in real life, it's like, "Oh my God, do you know who you are and how big of a thing that is?" But like she said, we got to fall in love with Daniel Radcliffe and that was amazing.
Scott Gries/NBCScreenRant: Carmelo is such an interesting place. We have that stage where our parents are our heroes forever, but then a switch flips where you realize they're human beings too. Do you think Carmelo still idolizes Reggie with those rose-tinted glasses or is he starting to see the cracks of who he really is?
Jalyn Hall: I think that what it is is he'll never stop seeing his dad as his hero and his role model. I think that he loves his dad even with his flaws, and I think he kind of takes the self-adoring role. Monica is his agent, but if anyone was his brand manager, I feel like it would be Carmelo. I feel like it would be like sit him down in the locker room, or like the assistant coach in a way. It's like, "Hey, these are the facts, dad, I'm here. I'm in your corner. I want what's best for you. Maybe we can make this decision, maybe nudge him in the right place." And we got to kind of see that in the first episode where he's talking about his mom. He's talking to Reggie about needing that partnership with Monica. And obviously, these are his parents, whom he both loves very much, and he really just wants the best for the family in its entirety, and he wants to be that glue to hold him together.
ScreenRant: Brina is not necessarily with Reggie just for money, fame, attention. She sees something in him. What is that quality she sees in Reggie that no one else does?
Precious Way: Oh, she sees his heart. She sees how genuine of a person he is, and she also really appreciates how he loves her, and he supports her and that's something that she hasn't had in her past partners. We will see that as the season goes on too. And that explains even more of why she's with him, because he's the total opposite of that. Everything that everybody else doesn't see about Reggie right off the bat, she already knows. She sees it. That's why she's with him.
ScreenRant: Did you get to work with Kyle Gordon specifically?
Precious Way: Yes, I did. He did crazy things to me in the show, and that's all I'll say. They have to tune in to see the rest, but he's hilarious, and we had a good time together.
Be sure to dive into some of our other Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins-related coverage with:
- Daniel Radcliffe appearing on the latest episode of ScreenRant's Debunking AI series
- Radcliffe teasing the possibility of rewatching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for its 25th anniversary
- Radcliffe, Robert Carlock and Sam Means on how Christian Bale's infamous Terminator Salvation meltdown inspired Arthur's
- Radcliffe's one request to Harry Potter fans ahead of the HBO reboot
- Radcliffe naming the two non-Harry Potter movies fans approach him about the most
New episodes of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins air Mondays on NBC at 8:30 p.m. EST.
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Release Date January 18, 2026
Directors Rhys Thomas
Cast
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Tracy Morgan
Reggie Dinkins
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The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins - Season 1
Release Date January 18, 2026
Episodes 3
English (US) ·